HTC Walks Away from Palm Purchase as Lenovo Steps Up

From DailyTech: Palm is having a very hard time in the smartphone market both in the U.S. and abroad. The company is seeing its profits drop and its handsets are failing to sell in the numbers that the company and analysts expect.

The poor sales of its handsets have led the company to step back and look at what it needs to do to ensure profitability and the survival of what was once one of the most popular brands in the industry. Palm is considering all options, including selling the company. Palm reportedly started looking for a buyer earlier this month. One of the early firms that were looking into acquiring Palm was rival smartphone maker HTC.

HTC has passed on the deal after looking at Palm's books. The most likely remaining candidate for the purchase is computer maker Lenovo. Lenovo has a line of handsets that it sells in its home Chinese market, but the Lenovo handset line has no foothold in the U.S. market.

Analyst Lu Chialin from Macquarie Securities in Taipei said, "A most suitable candidate will be a mainland Chinese company. They've got a lot more free cash and don't have the brand presence in the United States, so that will all give them that boost they need."

Reuters reports that its sources in investment banking have confirmed that Lenovo is considering a bid for Palm, but offered no specifics. Lenovo has offered no official statements on its intent to make a bid for Palm, but its stock has risen on the rumor of purchase.

Lenovo is reported to have the cash on hand it would need to purchase Palm if it chooses – at the end of 2009, Lenovo had $2.4 billion in cash. Palm is reportedly looking for about $1.3 billion from suitors. While the possibility of an outright sale is on the table at Palm, the company also has other plans. One of the possibilities would be to license its webOS to other companies to use on their smartphones.

View: Article @ Source Site